As the White House on Monday backed off in a legal dispute with CNN over the press credentials of White House correspondent Jim Acosta, the White House announced new rules of behavior for reporters, which could result in the suspension of a reporter’s press pass for asking more than one question of the President or top administration officials. “We have created these rules with a degree of regret,” said White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who directly blamed Acosta for the change, after the CNN reporter locked horns with President Trump in a post-election news conference earlier this month, refusing to give up the microphone while trying to get answers from the President about immigration policy. Here are the new rules as set out by the White House, which were contained in an email sent on Monday afternoon through the White House Pool: Sent: Monday, November 19, 2018 4:06 PM Subject: In-Town Pool Report #3- Acosta/CNN Letter From Press Secretary Sarah Sanders: This afternoon we have notified Jim Acosta and CNN that his hard pass has been restored. We have also notified him of certain rules that will govern White House press conferences going forward. They are listed here: A journalist called upon to ask a question will ask a single question and then will yield the floor to other journalists; At the discretion of the President or other White House official taking questions, a follow-up question or questions may be permitted; and where a follow up has been allowed and asked, the questioner will then yield the floor; “Yielding the floor” includes, when applicable, physically surrendering the microphone to White House staff for use by the next questioner; Failure to abide by any of rules (1)-(3) may result in suspension or revocation of the journalist’s hard pass. We have created these rules with a degree of regret. For years, members of the White House press corps have attended countless press events with the President and other officials without engaging in the behavior Mr. Acosta displayed at the November 7, 2018 press conference. We would have greatly preferred to continue hosting White House press conferences in reliance on a set of understood professional norms, and we believe the overwhelming majority of journalists covering the White House share that preference. But, given the position taken by CNN, we now feel obligated to replace previously shared practices with explicit rules. We are mindful that a more elaborate and comprehensive set of rules might need to be devised, including, for example, for journalist conduct in the open (non-press room) areas inside and outside the White House and for Air Force One. At this time however, we have decided not to frame such rules in the hope that professional journalistic norms will suffice to regulate conduct in those places. If unprofessional behavior occurs in those settings, or if a court should decide that explicit rules are required to regulate conduct there, we will be forced to reconsider this decision. The White House’s interaction with the press is, and generally should be, subject to a natural give-and-take. President Trump believes strongly in the First Amendment, and a free press and is the most accessible President in modern history. It would be a great loss for all if, instead of relying on the professionalism of White House journalists, we were compelled to devise a lengthy and detailed code of conduct for White House events.

The recent turbulence in the U.S. stock markets is spooking some older workers and retirees, a group that was hit particularly hard during the most recent financial crisis. There’s no indication, though, that the recent volatility has brought about large-scale overhauls in retirement planning. “There’s a lot of fear that if you have another event like 2008 and you retire the year before or the year after, you’re screwed. I’m not taking that risk,” says Mark Patterson, a recently retired patent attorney from Nashville, Tennessee. “There’s a huge fear of folks my age that they’re going to run out of money and they’re going to need to rely on the government for help.” By the time the market bottomed out during the financial crisis in 2009, an estimated $2.7 trillion had been wiped out of Americans’ retirement accounts, according to the Urban Institute. Older Americans, in particular, have had a tough time recovering their losses. The Pew Research Center estimates the net worth of the median Baby Boomer household in 2016 was still nearly 18 percent shy of where it sat in 2007.

Even the best of cooks can end up missing an ingredient on Thanksgiving morning. If you find yourself short on nutmeg or minus a few potatoes, there is a good chance a grocery store near you will be open on Thanksgiving for at least for part of the day. Here is a list of Thanksgiving Day openings, closings and store hours for national grocery store chains. Reminder: Some stores do not follow national opening/closing hours. Some state laws prohibit stores being open on a holiday. Be sure to check with your local stores for times. ALDI: All stores are closed on Thanksgiving. AJ's Fine Foods: Open 6 a.m. - 2 p.m. on Thanksgiving. Albertsons: Open from 6 a.m.-5 p.m. on Thanksgiving. Bashas': Open until 3 p.m. on Thanksgiving. BJ's Wholesale Club: BJ’s is closed Thanksgiving. Costco: All stores will be closed on Thanksgiving. Food Lion: Most stores will be open until 3 p.m. (depending on the store). Fresh Market: Open until 3 p.m. on Thanksgiving. Ingles: Open regular hours on Thanksgiving. Kroger: Stores are open regular hours on Thanksgiving. Publix: All stores and pharmacies will be closed on Thanksgiving; regular hours resume on Friday. Safeway: Most stores will be open from 6 a.m. until 6 p.m. Sam's Club: All stores are closed on Thanksgiving. Sprouts Farmers Market: Open 7 a.m. - 4 p.m. on Thanksgiving. Target: Stores open at 5 p.m. on Thanksgiving and close at 1 a.m. Friday. Trader Joes: All stores closed on Thanksgiving. Walmart: Stores will be open on Thanksgiving. Wegmans: Most Wegmans locations will close at 4 p.m. on Thanksgiving. Whole Foods: Hours: 9 a.m.-2 p.m. on Thanksgiving.

After a post-election vote fight that showcased vote counting troubles in two south Florida counties, Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) conceded defeat to Gov. Rick Scott (R) on Sunday, ensuring Republican gains in the Senate in the 2018 mid-term elections, and delivering a welcome piece of good post-election news for President Donald Trump and the GOP. “I just spoke with Senator Bill Nelson, who graciously conceded, and I thanked him for his years of public service,” said Scott in a statement. “My focus will not be on looking backward, but on doing exactly what I ran on,” Scott said. “Making Washington Work.” Florida elections officials on Sunday announced a final advantage for Scott of 10,033 votes – that was down from just under 15,000 in favor of Scott when the machine recount began, and lower than the nearly 12,500 edge for the GOP before the hand recount started on Friday. For Republicans, the hard fought win gives them a gain of two seats in the Senate for 2019, as the GOP will have a 53-47 edge, provided they can also win a special runoff election for Senate in Mississippi after Thanksgiving. The Scott victory was a rare piece of good news for Republicans since Election Day, as the GOP has lost a number of close House races in recent days. Democrats have now gained 37 seats in the House, with five GOP seats still undecided amid continued vote counting. Nelson becomes the fifth U.S. Senator to lose in November, joining three other Democrats – McCaskill in Missouri, Heitkamp in North Dakota, and Donnelly in Indiana – along with one Republican Senator, Heller in Nevada. While 5 Senators were tossed out by the voters in November, 27 House members – all Republicans – have been defeated. Several more could still lose in the five remaining House contests which are undecided. Hanging over the defeat for Nelson is what appears to have been a ballot design problem in one small part of Broward County, Florida, where thousands of voters did not cast a vote in the U.S. Senate race, which happened at a much higher rate than other areas in that county. The Florida Senate count is at Scott+10,033, right around the margin where the Broward County undervote/bad ballot design could have been decisive. We may never know https://t.co/Gg14C1heaV — Nate Cohn (@Nate_Cohn) November 18, 2018 The ‘undervote’ problems in that area of Broward County were just part of a slew of post-election issues highlighted by the wrangling over the final tally in both the Florida Senate and Florida Governor’s race.

Jamie Dupree – KRMG

Month: July 2018

Cracking down on accounts which were stirring political debate in the U.S. on issues that crossed party lines, the social media giant Facebook announced Tuesday that it had found evidence of “coordinated inauthentic” political behavior, raising questions about new efforts – possibly by Russia – to tamper with the 2018 election climate in the U.S.

“We’re sharing what we know today because of the connection between these bad actors and an event planned in Washington next week,” said Sheryl Sandberg, the CEO of Facebook in a call with reporters, who added that the investigation was still in an early stage.

For the seventh time in less than a year, the Congress has sent President Donald Trump a short-term extension of the federal flood insurance program, as lawmakers continue to search for a bipartisan legislative fix to a program that is already in over $20 billion in the red.

“Congress has got to start doing things differently,” said Sen. David Perdue (R-GA). “The current program is unsustainable, and taxpayers deserve better.”

The Senate voted 86-12 on Tuesday for a four-month extension of the National Flood Insurance Program, as the White House has urged Congress to agree on major financial reforms.

As former Trump Campaign Manager Paul Manafort goes on trial Tuesday in a federal court in Virginia on charges of tax and bank fraud, the specter of the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 elections – and any ties to President Donald Trump’s campaign – won’t be the main issue on the docket, but it will certainly be in the background as the trial gets underway.

Two months before a funding deadline for the U.S. Government, President Donald Trump on Monday signaled that he would favor using the threat of a government shutdown to force action on tougher immigration legislation, arguing once more that the Congress needs to vote on major changes to current U.S. immigration laws, which Mr. Trump says are not tough enough.

“I would certainly be willing to consider a shutdown if we don’t get proper border security,” the President said, amplifying a tweet from earlier in the day in which he again called for action by the Congress.

President Donald Trump on Sunday vented his frustration with both the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 elections, and any possible ties to the Trump Campaign, and also again blasted the the press, as he accused the news media of never-ending negative coverage of ‘the tremendously positive results we are achieving.’

“I will not allow our great country to be sold out by anti-Trump haters in the dying newspaper industry,” the President said in a flurry of salvos at the news media on Sunday, in which he took specific aim at the New York Times and Washington Post.

As the U.S. House left Thursday on an extended summer break which will last until Labor Day, Republican leaders in Congress signaled that 2018 won’t be much different from the past twenty-plus years on Capitol Hill, as lawmakers once more will not get their spending work done on time by the end of September, requiring the approval of a temporary funding plan to avoid a government shutdown on October 1.

“There will be some bills that won’t pass or won’t be ready by then,” said House Speaker Paul Ryan of the fiscal deadline, acknowledging at a Thursday news conference what everyone [More]

President Trump declared Friday that his economic policies were clearly triggering increased growth in the United States, celebrating release of new figures which showed the economy grew at an annual rate of 4.1 percent in the second quarter of 2018, up from a revised rate of 2.2 percent in the first quarter of the year.

“We’ve accomplished an economic turnaround of historic proportions,” the President said, flanked by Vice President Mike Pence outside the White House.

“We’re on track to hit the highest average overall growth rate in over thirteen years,” Mr. Trump added.

A day after agreeing to wide-ranging negotiations on trade with leaders of the European Union, President Donald Trump took credit for a resurgence in heavy industry jobs in the steel industry, arguing that his tariffs on imported steel and aluminum from Europe, Canada, and Mexico were bolstering American security and economic growth.

“We love our steel workers, and our steel workers are going back to work,” the President said at a U.S. Steel plant in Granite City, Illinois, which has added on shifts since Mr. Trump’s tariffs were put in place.

Breaking with a group of more conservative GOP lawmakers, House Speaker Paul Ryan said Thursday that he did not support an effort unveiled last night to impeach Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, as Ryan argued that despite concerns over cooperation from the Justice Department, the dispute did not merit such a constitutional showdown.

“Do I support impeachment of Rod Rosenstein? No, I do not,” Ryan said at a news conference, just before House members went home for an extended summer break which will run until after Labor Day.

“I don’t think we should be cavalier with this process, or with this [More]

A small group of Republicans in the House on Wednesday evening filed an impeachment resolution against Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, charging that the top Justice Department official had repeatedly not cooperated and refused to share documents with Congressional investigators, as the more conservative GOP lawmakers argued it was time to ‘hold him accountable.’